CODED Academy & Agility Launch ‘Kuwait Codes’

2023 training program for 1,000 students with expanded participation from young girls

Kuwait – 29 January 2023 – CODED Academy, the First Coding Academy in the Middle East – Based in Kuwait, is teaming up with Agility and other well-known local companies to launch Kuwait Codes, a free program that will train 1,000 high school students in programming languages and frameworks.

The Kuwait Codes initiative, now in its third year, aims to provide the basic digital skills that the country’s future workforce needs in order to build a successful knowledge- and innovation-led economy. To date, more than 1180 students have received free training through Kuwait Codes.

The 2023 program will focus on four distinct knowledge areas: Website programming, Game development, Python Programming, and Flutter. The intensive course runs over 3 main cohorts.

Ahmad Marafi, CEO OF CODED Academy, said: “We are pleased to partner with Agility in this strategic partnership to launch the Kuwait Codes initiative. It allows any high school student in Kuwait to learn coding and software development for free.  Agility, like CODED Academy, is also keen to ensure that girls are able to fully participate and complete the Kuwait Codes program. Our goal is 50% female participation in the 2023 program.  We want to extend our gratitude to Agility and all the supporters involved for contributing to this great initiative, which will benefit about 1,000 Kuwait youths.  Agility has previously supported CODED Academy’s Unicode program, which provided free training and skills development to more than 300 university age young people.  We’re proud to again have Agility as a Strategic Partner, and we’d like to thank the Agility team for contributing their time and effort to be part of our 2023 Kuwait Codes program.”

Henadi Al Saleh, Agility Chairperson, said: “Agility has long supported educational initiatives in the communities where we operate, especially initiatives that support the development of technical and digital capabilities, key skills we need in our workforce. CODED provides students in Kuwait with practical coding skills that set the foundation for the future. I look forward to seeing the progression and growth in the coming Kuwait Codes cohorts, especially progress achieved in girls’ participation.”

Hashim Behbehani – COO said: “I want to extend my warmest invitation to all eligible high school students in Kuwait to participate in this year’s Kuwait Codes program, especially to girls who are interested in apps and software development.  We will do our best to create space for any eligible student, and we will provide you all the tools, resources and support you need to be successful!

“I’d also like to thank Agility for its support of this year’s program.  I’d also like to thank Agility for engaging with us to ensure that girls can fully participate and complete this training.  Our goal is to make it super easy for participating students to understand the fundamentals of application development, and to help students to transition from classroom projects to “real” applications. I’m looking forward to seeing all the inspirational and very real apps this year’s participants will develop as part of this training!”

Registration for the Kuwait Codes program is now open. Female and male students are welcome to participate and can apply for the Kuwait Codes program by following CODED’s social media accounts at @Joincoded @kuwait_codes.

In 2022, Agility supported CODED’s UniCode program which provides digital coding basics to undergraduate students, and it has been organized with the support of the Computer Engineering Society (CPES) at Kuwait University, reaching 335 students, 60% of whom were female.